Certain white blood cells protect us from bacteria by engulfing them. A research team headed by Prof Dr. Lars Leichert, head of the research group Microbial Biochemistry, Prof Dr. Konstanze Winklhofer from the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum as well as Prof Dr. Andreas Meyer from the University of Bonn were the first ones to observe the process under the microscope, thanks to novel fluorescent proteins. The immune cells douse the bacteria with a toxic cocktail that contains, among other things, chlorine bleach. This leads to the oxidation of proteins inside the bacterial cell within seconds, resulting in bacterial death. The researchers published their report in the journal eLife.